Zano the Zergling work in progress
by RunawayDanish
Summary: This is the story of a Zergling named Zano, who's brood is killed during an assault by UED forces stationed on a fictional planet non-existent in StarCraft, Gali IV. Zano is adopted by a human medic named Sophia, and her lover; a marine named Quinn.


Chapter 1: Life outside the Rush.

The cannons that were on the hill-side errupted violently, sending explosive shells into the mountain of flesh that was rapidly approaching a steel hillside. Colorful explosions sealed the fate of many in that first wave, destroying flesh, bone, muscle, memory, within mere instants. Empty metal cylinders, steaming from the combustion that took place originally in an elongated, grooved, tunnel, now streamed out of their chambers, falling lifelessly on the ground beside the one behind the trigger. The stallwart defenders of this seemingly insignificant hill, grew weary of the action before them, yet they fought on, for fear of being engulfed by a thousand hungry mouths, never to be seen again. The corpses from the offencive force began to pile, puddles of blood turned to streams, streams into rivers, rivers into oceans. Rapidly running out of ammunition, the Iron Men, and their war machines, began to slowly fall to the Swarm. It consumed all in its path, obliverating structures, destroying machines, consuming men. Relentless and fearless, the Swarm pressed on, for there were more to destroy and consume.

Amongst this Swarm, was a young partaker, named Zano. Zano had never seen combat before, given he was born into this existance a mere five hours ago. The runt of his clutch, Zano had been told to stay near the back of the rush, for his brothers and sisters feared for his inablity to destroy. Now, after rushing suicidally toward the defensive emplacement that was "Hill 396", all of his Brothers and Sisters were dead, consisting a small part of the mass of flesh and bone and the sea of blood, they would be swiftly forgoten by the commanding... Force. He did not understand this Force, for it told him to always kill, and to attack everything that was not his kind. He understood that they were at "war", as another young zergling had told him, but he did not know why. What was the purpose of killing those unlike yourself, why should things be solved violently, what gave him and them the right to kill one another? These answers he did not know, but he was constantly on the run, because the Force had told him that he was thinking too much. How could you think too much, when there is so much to think about? The Force told him to get moving again, while he was muttering a prayer of some sort to his lost Brothers and Sisters. He looked up from his position, and noticed the Swarm was way ahead of him, nearly out of sight! He began to run after them, but they had dissapeared into a veil of smoke, which was soo thick, he could practically cut the smoke with his tallons. He ran after them, as fast as he could manage, but could not catch up. They left him, all alone, in a sea of blood.

/*Hours later\  
Zano had spent the vast majority of his time following the orders from the Force, but eventually, he decided to tune the Force out, and be on his own. What gave the Force the right to order him around anyway? The Force was a worm-like thing that could be easily killed, especially now because some "Overmind" that had been bringing the worms back to life, had perished by the hands of the "Humans" and the "Protoss". Zano continued to walk off from the path he'd been ordered to go down by the Force, but it wasn't like the Force knew what wonders lay beyond bloodshed. He had stumbled upon a strange membrane-like substance in a pool, it was like blood, but it didn't smell, and wasn't red, but instead a clear-blueish color. He knew that blood was a bad thing, but this stuff looked enticing. He took a nice big lap of it, because his throat was dry as the desert, and noticed a nice cooling sensation at the back of his throat. He took quite a few more sips, before he was content, and decided to jump into the water, because it was cool and refreshing to his mouth, so it must be nice to his skin. Making a decent sized splash for a Zergling runt, Zano suddenly realized a mistake had been made, because he began to sink! Worried, he began to kick his legs and arms around, eventually ending up balanced on his hind legs, because he had reached the bottom of the pool.  
"Well... um, that is different", Zano commented. He began to experiement while in the pool, moving his hind legs about in a walking motion, while attempting to control his front legs. After a few minutes of trying, and several plunges into the water, followed by attempting to get back into the unnatural position, Zano had figured out how to walk on his hind legs in the water. Not an easy feat for a Zergling, less so one that was significantly smaller than the others of his class, but he'd decided to attempt the same feat outside of the water.  
Originally, the manuever was simple in the water, but upon climbing out of the pool, Zano face planted roughly a meter from the pool's edge.  
"ugh... that hardly seemed fair..", Zano mumbled, pushing himself up with his front legs and the pair of scythe-arms he had in addition to his legs.  
"Ok...", Zano said as he brought himself to standing level again, "Take two.. lets not fall over this time, that hurt"  
Taking it slow, Zano walked laboriously toward a tree that had been located near the pool. Sighing, he leaned onto the tree, lost his balance again, and slid down the trunk, eventually comming to a stop when he was in a sitting position.  
"Ow... need to stop hurting myself...", he complained. Zano decided that he had enough of learning to walk on his hind legs for one day, took a few more drinks of water, and continued onward, following a small break in the near-by folliage, to where ever it would take him. He continued onward, for several minutes, before a strange scent caught his attention. It was sweet, and salty, and the aroma stuck to his nostrils better than Super Glue to paper. Following the scent on all fours, he moved quickly through a blur of greens, browns, and some blues. Blue was unusual, because if memory served correctly, the "Terrans" on Hill 396 wore some blue on their armor. He didn't want any trouble, but he had to have whatever was causing such a mouth-watering scent! He followed the scent a bit more, until he came face to face with a Human who was carrying a strange looking bag-thing, which the scent was most prominant. He shook his head to clear his vision, which had blured over from tears that had secreated upon impact. The human was doing the same, but upon making eye contact with Zano, it paniced. The human reached for a side-arm, just to have Zano push his hand down, forceing it to drop the weapon on the floor, out of reach. Zano did not understand why the human was screaming, all he wanted was whatever was in the bag. A quick sniff-test showed that the smell was indeed comming from the bag, so Zano clawed it a bit, causing it to burst forth it's contents. Now quite satsified, he released the human, and began to examine the items that had fallen to the floor. The contents included a small, green cylinder with some white markings, and a small see-through container, that was rather resistant to his clawing. The human, who had just got his bearings, looked at Zano with a rather confused facial expression. Head cocked to the left, right eyebrow raised, and a really open mouth, the human stared at Zano, who was still working on the plastic container. Hissing in anger, Zano tossed the container to the side. He had punctured it, but that only made the smell stronger, and more agonizingly tempting. The human picked up the container, then tapped Zano on his back. Zano let out a surprised gasp upon it's touch, but then calmed down as the human opened the container, and very carefully handed him the item that the aroma had come from. Zano quickly consumed the item, and it was rather amazing. It was sweet, but thick and a little salty, also sticky, but two kinds of sticky, the stickyness was wedged inbetween two slices of a fluffy white substance, which had a neutral taste. Zano loved the thing, but how was he supposed to get another one? The human's touch was there again, but a bit more than a poke, infact, more of a scratch, but a good kind of scratch, near the back of his head where a nasty itch had been worked up from all the running. He wasn't expecting the instant relief, but it was well recived. Zano decided that he should probably thank the human... but how was he supposed to do that? Did humans talk like Zerglings, or did they not talk at all? What if they spoke differently than him? Deciding that he would have to thank the human somehow, he rubbed up against the human, and gave it a lick across the face. The human laughed, a light feminane laugh, which hopefully told him what gender it was.  
"Hahaha, your just a confused one aren't you? I guess nukeing the Cerebrate does some crazy things to you little ones.", she playfully said.  
"You speak Zergling?", Zano replied, after comprehending the human's response.  
"You speak English?", the human shot back, the confused look had entered her face again.  
"Erm... its Zergling, or atleast that is what my brothers and sisters called it...", Zano retaliated.  
"Ah, never mind, it is the same language none-the-less, so um, do you know what has happenend to your Brood"  
"Brood? What is a Brood? Is it like a family or something? 'Cause all my brothers and sisters died on Hill 396"  
"Uh... yeah I guess to put it into terms, a Brood would be like your family, but a bit larger... like, uhhh... an extended family of some sort. And, I am... sorry about your loss, but my brother died on Hill 396, so you won't get too much sympathy from me." The human's face was sunken at the meantion of her brother. Zano couldn't imagine what emotions were going through the human's mind, but he did know that he never knew his brothers and sisters too horribly much, because they had only been together for a few hours. He then noticed something that he did not notice earlyer. The Force's voice was gone, not silenced, not quiet, just gone. It was nice knowing that the Force was no longer attempting to control him, but he wondered why the Force tried to in the first place. He also thought about what the human said, they "nuked" a "Cerebrate", maybe that was what was causing the Force's voice, he decided to ask her. The human was putting the bag's contents into another compartment of the bag. She looked around for something, when Zano noticed that he was still holding the green cylinder. He handed it to the human, then said:  
"Hey, is the Cerebrate like a leader or something? Because I was hearing a voice-like thing, and it wanted me to kill you guys... but it's gone now, so I don't know what to do"  
"Uh...", she seemed a bit uneasy about the reference to the Cerebrate, but she continued, "Well, we call a Cerebrate a 'Brain Bug'. They command the numerous forces that would consist of the Zerg presence on this planet. We just killed the last one that we located in this sector, and the majority of these woods have been purged. It is a miracle that you escaped the purge, however"  
"Purge? You mean they were hunting for me?", Zano nervously looked around expecting the big men to come out of the bushes at any moment, "I don't want to hurt anyone, I just want to get along"  
Zano drooped his shoulders and scythe-arms, sending a rather frightened look at the human. She seemed to get the message quite well.  
"Well, I guess I could work out something to keep you safe, but you need to not tackle people for their food, its rude." She winked at Zano, then sealing the bag up, she looked at Zano who was still next to her, "I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Sophia, what is yours"  
Zano, now on the spotlight choked, "Uh.. my.. name, erm... my name is.. Zano"  
"Zano, huh? I have heard stranger I suppose. Come on," Sophia spoke, as she stood up with the pack on her back again, "How about we go meet some of the people I work with? It would help them alot if they could know you before they shoot you full of holes. Come on, back down this trail will take us to the base camp they have set up"  
Sophia began to hike back towards where ever her base camp was, with Zano following very closely to her left. He was anxious to see this base camp, becuase it was full of humans, and probably the big men. They took the path for a long while, it must have been quite the walk for Sophia, given she had to heft that bag-thing around. Zano at first wanter to talk, but eventually he decided to take in the beauty of the forest surrounding him. Trees jutted almost infinently into the skyline, and their leaves created a dense canopy. Little specks of light penetrated through to the ground, but that was nothing compared to the amazing aura that was spawned by the light that did not penetrate the leaves. It was a dark-green hue that covered everything, createing a vast sea of lightly shaded foliage. He saw rapid movements in the distance, small fuzzy creatures that seemed to be screaming "chase me!". Zano would have run after them, but he decided to keep to his obligation to follow Sophia to the base camp. They approached a dirt trail, which lead into a steep hill. Sophia began to trudge forth, and Zano followed her as closely as possible, occasionally brushing up against her leg, which was reacted to with a light pat or scratch on his head by Sophia. At first, the trees began to become shorter, then small patches of brown grass began to appear on the trail. They traveled through a natural tunnel, and on the other side, the pair was rewarded with a beautiful, expansive vista. It wrapped all around the mountain path, enveloping Zano and Sophia with a delicate red-orange glow that radiated through the clouds, which painted the once green valley with an intoxicateing hue. Sophia kept walking, until she noticed that Zano had paused. To her surprise, it was not to take a leak or something trivial like that, but instead, he was gapeing at the sunset. While not a woman of ignorance, Sophia did not normally take the day in, day out motion of the sun rising and setting every 36 hours (as was this planet's daily cycle) for granted. For all that it was worth, however, Zano was definantly takeing in the scenery, obsorbing the atmosphere around him. Sophia set a hand on the back of his head, and for the first time today, he did not twitch at the sudden contact. Zano looked up toward Sophia and said:  
"Why bother killing each other when you can have something as stunning as this"  
Sophia looked at him, with a minorly sad expression.  
"Well Zano, not everyone appreciates nature for what it is. The majority of the people who I work with would rather kill, burn, and destroy everything that existed ever than sit down and look at the sun set"  
"Sun set? That is what it is called? Wow... it is amazing.." Zano was completely lost to the view, hardly noticeing the heavy boot-falls that approached from behind.  
"Leuitanent Kzans, what are you doing?" A marine from behind the unlikely pair shouted.  
Looking behind her, Sophia noticed that her best friend, Quinn, was aiming at Zano, finger nearly pressing into the trigger. Zano turned to face the new human, who looked really angry, or scared, or both.  
"Lower your damn weapon Quinn, he's not on a leash." Sophia calmly adressed the ready marine.  
"Well, why don't you kill it when you have the chance!?" Quinn shot back.  
"Because he speaks English, and doesn't want to hurt anyone, that is why, dumbass"  
"Wait up a minute there Soap, you ran across this thing on your hike, and didn't bother to shoot it on sight because he asked you politely? What if this thing is a scout or something?!" Quinn was near screaming now.  
"What is wrong with me not wanting to kill anyone?" Zano replied "HOLY FU-", Quinn's jaw looked like it was about drop to the floor, "What in god's name is a talking Zergling doing in the Koprulu Sector"  
"Quinn, relax he is just a lost Zergling looking for a home. Besides, I am sure that command would be able to find a use for a non-controlled Zergling"  
"This guy's name is Quinn? Wow, that is a pretty cool name." Zano walked over to Quinn, and began to sniff at his armor. He got startled by the smell of dried blood, and decided to stop sniffing while he knew that much.  
"Listen, with respect Ma'am, I doubt Command will let a Zergling just waltz on into their Post without some sort of bioscan, and blood work, and a muzzle with restraints.. and possibly a cage." Quinn looked at Zano, "I doubt you want to be tied down, then locked into a confined space"  
"Ok, relax Quinn. We'll take him in as a wounded survivor, and say that we wanted the bounty for living specimens. Once the lab is done with him, we'll run the idea past Command"  
"What is a lab?" Zano asked, "Is it where there is more of those fluffy white things? I could use one right now, I am starving"  
"Uh, Soap, what did you feed him...?" Quinn cocked his head at Sophia.  
"Well, we met when he tackled me for my lunch." She looked at Zano, and smiling she said, "I was expecting to get killed, but instead he just wanted some good ol' PB&J." she started laughing, "Never thought that would get me involved with a sentient Zergling! If I had known this during training, I would have dropped out and become a sergeon"  
Quinn and Sophia were laughing, but Zano cocked his head sideways, and raised an eye ridge, creating a near-mirror image of the same confused look Sophia had given him earlyer. Sophia looked at Zano and noticed he was obviously not understanding the joke.  
"How about we explain it later when we get to the camp? But for now, if we are going to go under the guise that you are a specimen,", Sophia looked at Quinn and continued "A certain marine is going to have to carry you the rest of the way"  
Quinn looked disturbed.  
"Wait, no no nononoooo way am I carrying a Zergling toward Command! I don't wanna get shot"  
Sophia shot Quinn an annoyed look, "Well how about the next time you get hurt, I forget to inject Morphine before doing stitches?" she threatened.  
"GAH! Alright alright, I'll do it, but you are giving me double Morphine if I get shot"  
"Agreed." Sophia responded. And with that, Quinn picked Zano up, and carried him piggy-back style toward command....

Chapter 2: Fido knows best

The damn darkness made it near-impossible to see anything. This forest world, Gali IV, had hellish evenings for anyone on post. Thick mists generally moved in at the exact altitude as the standard-issue watchtower, makeing normal vision via flashlights a pain in the ass. When in these conditions, most would loose their nerve, and either A. Report false Zerg activity, or B. Walk back to base, leaving the post absent, allowing any Zerg who decided to pass at that time to move into UED territory unmolested. Rath, along with a mere two others, was the only one of the 60 or so conscripts that were assigned to watch this, and many like it, kind of post. A bio-scan alarm, which normally made no noise, and emitted a faint blue light, was now beeping significantly, meaning that UED marines were close by. So far, the dectector did not discern any Zerg, so that was a good thing. He switched on his Infared Goggles, extremely useful in low-light situations given they went on heat, over "normal" visual light. Using the goggle's zoom feature, Rath zoomed in on a pair of marines, one who bore the clean white armor of a medic, and another who bore the silver and white armor of a standard UED marine. Zooming in showed that it was, as the bio-scan confirmed later, Quinn and Sophia. Those two were near inseperable, one the fighter, the other the thinker. Quinn was, as usual, carrying something of significant weight, Rath thought, looking at the two silhouettes who were steadily closing on the check-point. The bio-scan system showed Lt. Sophia, and Corporal Quinn, yet it also showed a warning: the one most closely associated with infested marines. Whatever it was that Quinn had, was making the scanner go crazy. Rath wanted, of anything, to hope that Quinn wasn't tagged by a queen or something, but the readings showed a significant mass of Zerg-flesh on him. Readying his rifle, he prepared to put poor Quinn out in one shot, until he noticed a carapaced head resting on Quinn's right shoulder.

/*meanwhile\  
"Are we there yet?" Zano asked, possibly for the millionth time this hour.  
"No. But we're close, first check-point should be right up ahead, Sgt. Rath should be there if I am not mistaken, so we shouldn't get shot." Sophia replied Zano was getting really tired of being hauled around like some giant rock or something of that manner. It was annoying, because there were so many scents and sounds and sights to investigate, and the grass had felt really good against the pads of his feet. He had developed a horrible itch on his lower back that he had no hope of scratching because he was being held by his hind legs, and had to hold onto Quinn with his front ones to keep him from being drug around in the dirt! To make things more annoying, the trip was excruciateingly slow, or the sky was moving too fast, he couldn't tell; but whatever it was, the day had just vanished. The last thing that annoyed him was a painful rash that had been caused by his soft underbelly (in comparision to the hard carapace that covered the majority of his body) rubbing up on Quinn's armor, which was really cold. He really wanted to just chomp down on Quinn's shoulder or something, so that he could walk and be relieved from the annoyances. He tried a few trips from Sophia that would normally work on humans, like sleeping, or playing mind games. He was too worked up from being around humans to sleep, and he had no idea what "mind games" were anyway! Something he also noticed was a slowly increasing tingling sensation in his abdomine. He asked Sophia about it, being that he had learned she knew more about his body than he did, and she simply replied: "Well, did you drink anything? Like water, or something"  
"Is it bad to drink?" Zano asked.  
"No, it is actually a good thing. Only thing is, your body extracts nutrients from the water, and puts it into the blood stream. From there, the nutrient rich blood flows throughout the body, until it is nutrient free. What is left of the water is waste. Your species has no sweat glands, so you can't get rid of the water-waste over time without uriniateing. So, to speak in plain english: You drink water to live, and you body uses it, then makes you have to pee. Simple as that"  
"So... why doesn't the body use everything in the water then"  
"Well, Zano. Sometimes there is dirt, bacteria, and other things like unusable minerals in the water. In addition to that, the body produces waste naturally, without using water, so the water actually helps keep your bodie's internal components clean"  
The conversation ended abruptly when a spot light hit the trio.  
"Quinn, why the hell are you carrying a Zergling?! You are not supposed to help the ENEMY. Another thing, Lieutenant Sophia, is there a chance we could have an infestation in our ranks? I will not allow you through until you explain this crazy-bullocks!" A man with a deep English accent screeched through a voice-amplifyer.  
"Rath, do you not get out too often?" Sophia sneered "I think you are forgetting about that ransome on living Zerg specimens. And really, we have Wraiths covering every square kilometer for Queen action, so I would not worry about an infestation"  
The spot light remained on, but a dark figure could be seen sliding down a metalic pole. Once he was down, he pulled his side-arm and casually walked to the trio in the spotlight.  
"I thought you were supposed to be near 3rd companie's command post by now, Soap." Rath projected. For a Ghost, he sure was an asshole when things confused him. Most Ghosts tried to wrap their minds around unusual events, but that was not the case with Rath. Born and raised in the heart of Great Brittan, the Earth-borne was one of the few rare cases of valiance and asshole. He was a lethal sniper, and had amazing psychic abilities, but DAMN was he closed minded, Sophia thought.  
"Listen Rath, we were en-route to 3rd company, but this little bugger just happened to conveinently pop in for a visit, so we decided that 3rd company could wait just a bit longer before their slu- erm, female soldier, could have her leg wrapped for minor lacerations"  
"Cold Soap, cold. I don't think Ms. Peirce would appreciate that comment to much." Rath rambled, "At anyrate, so what is the deal with this lil' 'ling anyway? He looks like a small dog. Oh wait, I've an idea, we shall call him Fido! How'd ya like that, Fido?" Rath attempted to pat Zano on the head, but was shocked when Quinn let go of Zano's legs, allowing Zano the perfect opperatunity to give Rath a nice Zergling tackle.  
"My name is NOT Fido, you ignorant human!" Zano brought his snout just milimeters away from Rath's surprised face, "You will call me by my real name, which is Zano. Get it?" Zano grabed Rath by his shoulders and gave him a nice shake.  
Rath, no longer afraid, but rather puzzled then threw Zano to a near by wall using tele-kinesis. It was a "playful" throw, as most Ghosts called it.  
"Sorry about that Fido, I don't like you like that yet..." he put a smirk on his face, "Actually, I doubt that I will ever enjoy being tackled by a male Zergling, I would much prefer a female instead!" And by finishing that statement, Rath began to laugh quite hard.  
"Rath, for fuck-sake, give the poor guy some respect, he is a talking Zergling!" Quinn remarked, puffing his chest, for dramatic effect.  
"Well, ya see." Rath said, putting his side-arm at its holster, "I am not called a Ghost for no reason. Things like that very rarely go over my head, especially when someone is practically yelling at the top of their lungs"  
Zano shot a puzzled look at Rath, completely unaware of what this "Ghost" could do, aside from move really really fast, or something. The guy didn't even move, not even blink, but suddenly Zano was sitting, in the same position as he was when he slid down the tree, with his hind legs out-stretched, his tail comeing out directly infront of him between said legs. The only thing that he did notice that was positive, was that his rash had been relieved for the most part, and that itch went away.  
"I take it Fido's got no idea about Ghosts"  
Sophia nodded.  
"Ok boyo, here's the deal: Ghosts are psychics, meaning that they can do things with their minds that normal people cannot. I am what the grunts call a Teep/Teek, which is short for Telepatic-Telekinetic. So, to put it into perspective, I can lift you up into the air with my mind, and beat you at a game of telepathic Chess, while solving a Rubix cube"  
"Wha...?" Zano now was genuinely confused, jaw agape, eyes wide, and mind abuzz, because suddenly Rath linked his mind to Zano's, explaining just about everything about the Ghost program, and humans, and Zerg, to Zano. His eyes went glassy for a moment, almost like he had expired, or had cataracts.

/*Roughly two hours later\  
The rocks made quite a racket on the under-side of the tank. It was nice of Rath to hook Sophia and Quinn with a passing Siege Tank, but that only cut the thirty minute walk into a ten minute ride, given the cramped one-lane roads. These roads were the "last defense" against the now-exterminated Zerg presence. Zano had fallen asleep, according to Rath. Sophia didn't believe it until she checked his vitals, which had proven to be perfectly alright. She had asked Rath about why Zano had reacted the way he did, and all Rath could say was:  
"I kinda over-loaded his brain's capacity for instant inteligence." He patted Zano's sleeping body on the head, "Lil' Fido managed to take significantly more than most people I do that to. His sub-concience is going into over-drive, shutting down higher-level thinking so that it can figure out what the hell to do with all the data"  
"Huh, but why are his eyes glazed over?" Quinn asked, giving a nice poke to the eye-ridge just above Zano's left eye.  
"Well, Quinn, Zerglings are kinda like geckos. They have a membrane that covers their eyes, rather than an actual eye-lid. It is what causes the cataract-like appearence to his eyes. I haven't seen a sleeping Zergling, personally. And he very rarely blinks because his eyes are constantly irrigated by over-active tear ducts located in the eye-ridge"  
Quinn gave Sophia an annoyed stare,  
"Why the hell do you know so much about Zerglings anyway"  
"Because I used to attend the disections, until I stopped one because said Zergling was still alive, and no anethesia was going to be used.", Sophia defended.  
"Basically Quinn, a bleeding heart liberal should not be allowed to attend the disection of the enemy." Rath joked.  
"Hey, as we clearly saw, they've got feelings too"  
"Yes, but that is beside the point, you are an animal rights activist"  
"And what is wrong with that Rath?! Is being a nice person illegal now"  
"Well, in this case yes", Quinn jumped in, "because you are helping the enemy"  
Sophia had a bit more fun poked at her, and just before the beastiality jokes came, the Seige Tank had rolled up, under orders to check up on Rath's post. Non-surprisingly enough, the guy was happy to remove the now-angry Lieutenant and childish Corporal from the non-challant Rath. If it was any confirmation, the driver happened to be one of the best-known seige commanders of all of the UED's deployed forces in the Koprulu sector, Mr. Corpus. Corpus, while ruthless and efficent on the battle field, was a kind-hearted gentlemen with a soft-spot for dogs. It showed most notably on his dashboard. Pictures of nearly thrity different species of kanine were taped, push pinned, and clipped to that dashboard, which also included countless empty coffee cups. When he heard of Zano's particular affliction (being that he could talk) Corpus did one of the strangest and most energetic dance that anyone had ever seen the man do. If she had a camera, she would have to sell the footage to the tactical-communications array.  
The breaks squeeled, and momentum carried Sophie and her bulky armor a little farther forward than she had anticipated. That motion was just enough to pull her out of her thoughts, as she began to undo the safty harnesses that were restraining her bodie's movement. Corpus wished her and Quinn luck with winning some custody over Zano, and then opened the hatch. Obviously, command had been informed of the Zerg guest, and a team of scientists was already prepareing some equipment for the "exploritory surgery". Unusual to an inquisition team, was the lack of medical nurse, to guide the team, or make nessicary restraining measures. Also unusual to the team, was the Company Supreme Executor, Ethan Huxley.  
"I trust that no one is infested, Soap." Ethan was, sadly, Sophia's father, which made for some of the most hilarious exchanges of disrespectful dialouge that any military soldier had ever seen.  
"Well father, I assumed that you would be upset if I just went and got infested without your permission", She sarcastically remarked, "if I didn't bring the infestor, you'd be upset that I entered a relationship without you meeting the guy!" She gave her father a wink, followed by a breif hug.  
"Yes, I was hopeing that you would bring a good speciemen. We're going to do something that will piss the UED off"  
"What would that be, allow a Zergling to live"  
"Heh, if you didn't happen to be my daughter, I would send you off to be trained as a Ghost. But yes, the theory is that if this one is so different from the others, we could use him as an experimental weapon. I mean, think of it this way: the last thing the Zerg would expect, is their own kind accompanying the UED into battle"  
It seemed like a rather ambitious goal, but atleast her Father didn't sit around and drink all day, like some of the other "head hanchos", as her Father called them.  
"Well, we would have to capture a queen or something, you and I both know that the Zerg are sterile"  
"Yes, yes, that is why I wanted to get this guy so badly. Because even if he's sterile, we can use cell cultures to create clones, and clones are expendable"  
"Wait, you're going to attempt CLONEING? Do you not know the effects on the host if you clone him? Cloneing a person is like robbing them of their personality, and I for one will not"  
Sophia stopped, noticing all the awkward stares she was receiveing from the surrounding crowd of marines and workers. Quinn tapped her on the shoulder.  
"You realize that now everyone thinks you've got the hots for a Zergling right"  
She shifted nervously in her place, feeling the combined force of nearly fifty pairs of eyes concentrated on her. What she had said was either a sign of Infestation, or insanity, as the majority of humans put it. Now, fortunatly for her, everyone in the group happened to remember the outburst, and scalple incident that followed, about the anesthesia incident.  
Sighing, Ethan finally broke the silence,  
"Ok, I know you won't see to the cloneing process, but I do know that you will atleast lead the science team in the experiements"  
Sophia silently stood there, very deep in thought. She called into question not only her father's ethics, but also her ethics, and how humanity might benifit from it. She couldn't just destroy Zano for science, but maybe she could develop some method of getting him safely away from the science, yet help her father in some way. She sighed.  
"Alright I will do it, but I had better not have ANYONE stepping on my toes, got it"  
"Of course sweety, feel free to start whenever you feel ready." With that, Ethan strod away, towards the Command Center, probably for some meeting or event of insignifigance. None the less, Sophia surmised, she had to make Zano understand why exactly they were going to do this to him. She's got all the time in the world to delay, so she decided to take atleast a day or two to see him to good health, explain how people work in the base, and whatever she felt he may need to know. Rath had done some massive "inteligence insertion", so perhaps explaining everything to Zano would be easyer... or possibly harder. It didn't matter, she would have to do so anyway. In the meanwhile, she took had Quinn carry Zano to her private quarters, set up a small dog-sized bed, and had Zano placed there. She never thought that a Zergling would end up in her quarters, unless it had hostile intentions, but she supposed that all things that are weird happen for the reason that it is weird. She got her combat-suit off, and decided that a nice warm shower would do her some good.

/*The next morning\  
Zano awoke with a hiss, not of frustration, nor of any real emotion. For him, the hiss was like a yawn, just a thing to help wake him up, or put him to sleep. With the daylight, came the knowledge that the planet they were on orbited around a large combustion of various elements, which produced the light that caused the perception of day. Day was limited by the speed at which the planet rotated on it's axis, which would also follow the path of an ellipse, meaning the planet would rotate around the star with various distances, and because of the elongated oval shape of this planet's oval, Summer, Spring, Fall, and Winter came twice a year. He stretched, allowed another hiss to escape, and decided that whatever substance he was sleeping on wasn't exactly the most firm sleeping surface, which played hell with his back. Pulling the blanket that happened to be drapped over the pile of various soft items, he quickly noted that his "bed" was created of several pillows, which were loosly stacked onto one another. He heard movement behind him, and rotateing his head to look over his right shoulder, he saw Sophia, in a very non-graceful pose. She was sprawled out over the sheets, several pillows were on the floor in various incriments of distance from the bed, a sign of rough dreams, or overactive R.E.M. sleep. He remembered from that enlightening blast of knowledge that Rath had given him, that Sophia was called "Soap" because of her extreme obsession of keeping instruments sterilized. She had earned that nickname because of the rediculous amount of time and attention she paid to the medical instruments' cleaning during medical school.  
He was getting off topic. Rath had personally included a layout of the base, and list of all the faculty included in it, and to his knowledge, Soap would be the only one still asleep. Rath apparently had stumbled upon Zano's memory of attempting bipedal motion, and thus-fore left a nice "note" of sort.  
"Next time you try to walk up-right, take into account that your tail is supposed to balance you out when you are on all fours, so adjust your posture accordingly"  
Takeing the nice bit of advice into claw, Zano stood up, managing his balance with exceptional skill. He walked up a small step, approached Sophia's bed, and then realized that she would probably "Shit Bricks" (as Rath would have put it) if she saw a Zergling towering over her. He decided to "play it off of the cuff", and do whatever impromptu greeting he could manage. Dropping back to all fours, he nudged Sophia's face with his snout.  
"Ergnmmmmmmmm...........", Sophia rolled over, leaving Zano stareing at the back of her head. He jumped onto the bed, and put his fore-legs on her right flank, following with a swift shakeing motion,  
"Come on Soap, wake up! You've no-doubt got something to tell me about, like what I missed, or how I ended up in the base! Come on, come on! Wake up"  
Sophia mumbled something uninteligable, then rolled over and creaked a bleary eye at Zano.  
"Z-zano? What the hell are you doing awake"  
She got up to a sitting position, Zano deciding that she would take a while to get up, sat down on her bed as well, cocking his head to the left and raising an eye-ridge.  
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Sophia said, clearly quite tired.  
"Well, I just learned about fifteen years of information, in a mere fifteen hours. Learning is tireing, and I am really hungry"  
Sophia smiled,  
"Well, atleast you know you're hungry, rather than asking me what the rumbling in your tummy is." she winked at him. He took the joke much better, and said:  
"As long as it's not in a bowl marked 'Fido', we are all good." Jumping down from the bed, he continued:  
"You should hurry up and get dressed, before I eat your shoes or something"  
Sophia quickly got dressed up in some day clothes, walked over to the door where Zano was sitting, and then realized that he knew exactly where he was going. Dismissing the possiblity that he knows more than she does, Sophia opened the door, and the duo walked out into the bright sunlight that was Gali IV in mid-day.

Chapter 3: Operation Cwal

It was nearly mid-day, and Lieutenant Sophia was just now awake. Corpus had been waiting for roughly two hours, in the burning sun (which was most unforgiveable, even when at a high altitude), with a long-empty cup of coffee. He was originally waiting to just wish her good luck with the testing on Zano, but it turned out that 3rd Company's base of operations had gone silent fifteen minutes ago. Not one to gamble his best troops, Supreme Commander Huxley sent a small group of "fresh arrivals", which meant that the scouting party was greener than the grass they stepped upon. The team reported in nearly three minutes ago that they had found a flipped over Siege Tank. Now, how often does a ten-ton Siege tank just FLIP? Corpus had seen it happen twice before, once when the tank drove off of a cliff and fell for roughly 1000 vertical meters, and the second time was because a modified strain of Ultralisk unborrowed underneath said tank. Either way, the forces of the UED were probably the best trained troops around, minus the sad fact that recruits from "converted" colonies kept pouring in because the Zerg that occupied this planet happened to be one of the most evovled Broods this side of Auir. Perhaps what they learn from Zano would turn the tide in the UED's favor.

/*UED Patrol, 7:23am, 6/19/2503/  
A Quartet of Marines trudged through the forest, watching the road, canopy, and even the trees for possible contacts. Their boots smashed grass blades, snapped twigs mercylessly, and above all else, made a hell of a lot of noise. They had roughly a half-mile until they would reach the objective, which would be (hopefully) 3rd Companie's base of ops.  
"Randy, you sure we are heading in the right direction?" a young marine broke the silence.  
"Stephan, I am positive. Look at your tactical map! It's not aided by long-range scanning for no reason!" the Squad lead, Randy, was getting obviously annoyed.  
Another one of the draftee's joined in the conversation as well "So, they suspect it is a communications breakdown, but they don't bother to send like a Wraith or something to go check it out? What the fuck is up with that?" This marine had his visor disengauged, and his wavy red hair combined with high-pitched voice and feminane face made him seem like an angry teenage girl in a massive combat suit. Stephan and the last marine began to cackle a bit, until a small pop dropped the red-head, with a single shot.  
"Shit, SNIPER! Break up, and find some god-damn-" Randy's orders were cut short when another pop sounded, slamming cleanly through the glass visor, and the metal back of the helmet. There was no noise after that, the sniper in question did not even bother to reload. The two marines, complete strangers to one another, were caught in the middle of a forest, with their squad lead and another marine killed by a single sniper. The only thing they could do now was radio for help, and hope the sniper wasn't doing the same.

/*Supreme Commander Huxley's Command Center, four hours later/  
"Where the HELL is that FUCKING patrol Scott?!" Huxley slammed the table with his fist, causing some of the nice wood to crack, and also sending an empty cup into the air.  
"I want to know what happened to those men!" Huxley was normally patient with his sub-ordinates, but after four hours of nothing, his temper had grown short.  
"Sir, whoever, or whatever decided to attack 3rd Companie's base of op's is using long-range jammers. There is NO way we can pinpoint Heta squad's location. Radio contact has been shot to shit. The only option we have to us, is to send someone in to get their asses out of the fire." Huxley's face went to a shade of red that most marines would associate with an alergic reation.

/*Outside, with Zano and Sophia/  
There was some pounding on a hard substance, followed by a muffled "GOD DAMNIT ALL TO HELL!" comming outside of the "Supreme Commander's" Command Center. Zano had learned from Sophia that her father did not normally act this way, but judging from Corpus's warning, it was obvious that anything but para-normal activity was causing such a reaction.  
"So, why is he so mad? He could send someone in to go get a report, or try that radio thing you got. I am sure there is a really easy solution to this." Zano commented to Sophia, who wore a very tired expression still, after being forced awake by Zano's persistance.  
"Zano, it seems that the area is in a 'Jamming Bubble', which means that no radio communications can be sent into that area, or recived from that area. My father is angry, because he doesn't want to send more people into a giant Fog of War, without some prior intell.", Sophia sighed, "He would use the Wraiths, but we can't afford to loose them to anti-aircraft fire"  
Zano repeated that confused look he had become accustomed to, until an idea hit him.  
"Why not send me in? It's not like they're in trouble or anything"  
"Absolutely not, Zano. Don't even think about it. My father wants us to do research on you before anything happens"  
Zano's face fell with that meantion of his reality. Rath's 'Mind Packet' (as Rath called it anyway), gave Zano plenty of reason to not want to look forward to the "Research", includeing a memory from Rath involving his telekinesis and telepathic powers, and their effects on common lifeforms. Despite this, one thing Rath did for him most noteably was to include the structual weakness of the restaints that would be used on him, as well as a layout of the laboritory that he would probably be housed in. If something Zano did not approve of happened, (such as said telepathic jests, but there was a chance that the head nurse leading the operation would not sanction it) he could escape from the laboritory, and regroup with Rath at a secret location near Hill 396. Little to Zano's knowledge, and much to Sophia's knowledge, the experiments would be testing his "higher level" thinking, which included his logic, social skills, and most importantly, his Libido (the wouldn't want a Zergling running around the base humping people's legs, now would they.  
Quinn tapped Zano on the shoulder. Zano, still not accustomed to the sudden placement of hands on his back, leaped forward with a yip, turning on his left fore-arm, and using his tail to trip Quinn. Startled gasps came forth, silenced by a nice THUD. Quinn was now on his back, and Zano was hiding behind Sophia.  
"Holy christ... ow..." Quinn mumbled, standing up and brushing the dust and dead grass from his armor.  
"What the hell did I do to you"  
"You startled him Quinn, remember our talk last night about that?" Obviously, Quinn's less-than-stellar memory had failed him about that detail.  
"Oh, hell I forgot. Sorry Zano, didn't mean to scare ya"  
Zano's head crept cautiosly from behind Sophia's legs. He had not gotten such a good look at the marine's shadow, and because Quinn smelt just like the other dozen or so marines in the area, and wore the same armor, it was near impossible to tell who was behind him.  
"Oh, erm... it's ok Quinn, my bad." He finally responded, still a bit jumpy though. It did not help that Quinn had identified himself. After seeing his former brothers and sisters get destroyed by humans in similar armor-types, Zano couldn't help but have a well-rooted "Phobia" (as Rath had put it) of the bulky armor. He didn't mind non-armored humans, such as Sophia when she was not in her armor, but the lifeless visors made it impossible to determain someone's mood, or their facial expression.  
"Well, I am leading the team to go search for the rookies, we'll be back within ten minutes or so." Quinn jested, then proceeded to walk off in the direction of the vehicle bay. Zano shot Sophia a questioning look, almost like he was asking her to let him go with. Obviously Sophia got the message.  
"Listen, Zano. Once the testing is done, you'll get the chance to go out and explore all you want, but for now, you're going to have to come with me"  
Zano wasn't pleased to have all this "testing" done to him, but he supposed that maybe a few uncomfterable seconds with a rectal thermometer wouldn't hurt him.. much.

/*Hours later/  
It was roughly 25:00 (of a possible 36:00), and Quinn's team had made little progress. Huxley didn't want anyone diving too deep into the jamming bubble, so Quinn and his team could only come within five miles of 3rd Companie's base of ops. He was about to give up all hope and, as usual, disobey a direct order from command to see something for himself. While he got a lot of lattrine duty for it, he also got a lot of respect from his commanders and peers. Very few people will get up and say "Let me take a look" when Command is ordering you to ignore it or leave it be. He radioed Command, and told them to expect a call around 27 or 28:00. As usual, Huxley was pissed, but after some calm reasoning from Quinn, green-lighted the situation, on the basis that Quinn had "Called ahead for a change". Most of the time, he wouldn't tell his Commander he was going to "Jump the Gun", but today was different, because odds are he won't want to see Zano until AFTER the testing was done. The rest of his team had piled into the Siege Tank, ready to head back to base. Quinn had bid them fare-well, and began to dive into the jamming bubble.

/*Meanwhile, with Reptile Squad's remaining two survivors/  
Stephan had barely made the four meter spread between his and the other Heta Squad member's cover. The shot from said sniper came so close that the graze had thrown him off balance, meaning that he had gotten behind cover safely by falling over. It had been about three hours since the sniper had killed Randy and the red-head, and the mission clock said they were out for about nine. He was still on the floor, shifting his weight, when suddenly the other Heta Squad member made a dash for a near-by rock. A bright explosion lit the forest, and, (with a sudden urgency) Stephan had began running, for a Seige Tank had rolled into position and destroyed the other guy. He ran as fast as his legs would carry him, until another tank round burst near-by. Pain shot up through his left leg, at the knee, meaning he'd either blown his Knee out via shrapnel, or he had just gotten a nice piece of sharpnel in his leg. It turned out to be neither, because his next gait proved that he had, sadly, lost his left leg entirely. He face planted onto the floor, and as the shock wore off, began to scream from the immense pain. 'How had things all gone so wrong?'he thought, he wished he could see his mother and father, but a single shot obliverated everything from his memory, forever.

/*Forty meters from Stephan's location/  
Quinn heard the unmistakeable sound of a Seige Tank's artilery shells. He had just seen a sniper's muzzle flash, and now had the task of quietly sneaking to said sniper, who was probably spotting for the tank. The sniper could be heard, laughing heartily over the Tango's local radio channel. Quinn managed to hack the channel, given that it only had one password on it, and no notification system that would tell their Command that he had hacked in. Radio chatter had identified the invading force as reminants of the "Sons of Korhal", the very rebels who had overthrown the Terran Dominion recently. It appeared that this particular section of the Son's had been cut out of the big picture, for obvious reasons. Their equipment was all fabricated from scrap, their routines and security was horrid, and everyone there had learned to shoot in their backyards. He wasn't one to get picky about the good ol' South's (as they called it on Earth) training, but he did know that none of the men their had any decency or combat effectiveness. Arcturous had used them as a "last defence for backwater posts", so obviously they were attempting to rebel against anyone in any way. Another muzzle flash from the sniper. He was close, and undetected by said sniper. Quinn scanned the nearby area, and saw quite well, the vivid outline of an uncamoflagued sniper sprawled out on a rock. Quinn wanted to knife-kill this guy, but he needed the sniper to die quietly. He clicked his rifle into semi-auto, attatched a sound surpressor to the barrel, and silenced the sniper. The sniper, unlike the radio's security, had been tracked via vital-sign montitoring. The radio was abuzz with "What the fucks" and "How the Hells". Quinn detached the sound surpressor, clicked the saftey on his rifle, and trudged back toward Command. As he walked away, he heard the sound of a very confused Siege Tank shelling the surrounding canopy for the infiltrator. They never would know.

/*In the laboritory/  
"Ok, so what do I do here? Just lie down or something?" Zano asked Sophia, as she loaded him into an MRI/CAT scanning machine. Even nearly five centuries after their invention, the only changes to MRI and CAT scans was the quality. Back in the 21st Century, doctors had to go off of a two dimensional image, while now, real-time three dimensional images were displayed via a holo-projector in the Scan room. Sophia had noticed that despite the information that Rath had given him, Zano was still as inquisitive as a small child in a factory. It took UNUSUALLY long to explain why they had to use a rectal thermometer, and even longer to convince him to hold still long enough, because she was the one administering said thermometer. After a long and awkward conversation about Zano's sex, and how humans and Zerglings were not exactly similar in their sexes, Sophia had managed to move Zano through a physical stress-test, some bloodwork, and a psychological evaluation. She had learned quite a bit from Zano for that particular stretch of thrity minutes. What made her laugh, was that he had attempted to stand upright, a mere ten hours after he had hatched! It was rare that a Zerg who disobeyed it's Cerebrates orders managed to end up alive, and even more so that he could speak perfect english, but who would have guessed that he would have ended up attempting to walk up-right? She wondered if he wanted to be human, at first, but when he told her that he was born yesterday, she quickly dismissed that theory, because he wasn't even old enough to hit "Zergling Puberty" (which is around 8 months old, given how quickly a Zergling's body develops), much less decide that he was already fed up with his body! She banished the current thoughts out of her head quickly, given that Zano had asked her why she was day-dreaming about three times already.  
"Oh, erm sorry. Just thinking about, uh...", she looked around quickly, trying to formulate a not-so-awkward answer to Zano's question, "Dinner, yeah"  
Zano just laughed at her and said:  
"I know it must be shocking to have a Zergling sitting right infront of ya, but trust me, your as scarry to me as I must be to you"  
Sophia realized just that as Zano finished speaking. When she thought of it, humans were not exactly built to wage war, but they did happen to wage a lot of it. She remembered a Protoss Executors words, just before he was executed: "You humans run about recklessly, destroying all unlike yourself in your path, and leave dead worlds, devoid of any resources, in your wake." She seriously contemplated those words. Unlike her, Zano was an animal, in some respect, and she was the result of eons of 'intelligent' mongering, and fighting.  
"Hey, can we get this over yet? I still haven't eaten ya know..." Zano ripped her from the day-dreaming again "Oh, yeah. Uh, go ahead and lay down flat on your stomach." Zano did as he was told, and Sophia activated the MRI/CAT scanning machine.  
Zano,who was wondering about Sophia and the humans (at the same time Sophia was doing the same to him), and really wished that he wasn't afraid of them. Most of them gave him nasty looks, and the ones who didn't hate him were scared of him too! The only humans who had given him any space to introduce himself were Rath, Quinn, Sophia, and Corpus. Outside of that group, he was either hated or feared. He saw some movement, suddenly, and just like the treadmill's tread he'd seen earlyer, he began to move forward without making an effort to do so. It was interesting, the way that a small chemical reaction in a fluid and metal filled battery generated energy, which traveled through wires and circuts toward the motors, could cause such a mass to move so effortlessly. Zano had been sifting through his inherited knowledge about motors and whatnot while doing his stress-test, and realized that... it was waaaaay too complicated for his mind to explain to his consious in one day.  
The MRI/CAT scanner was finally done, and the motorized ring that was spinning around him had slid backwards from where he was laying, allowing him to finally get up. There was so much to think about, and so much to do, he could hardly stand just sitting around. Rath had included a nice saying in an attempt to keep him calm in all of this, but "Patience is a virtue of life" doesn't help his excessive engery! He might as well ask Sophia about it, she seems to know enough to maybe help him, or atleast explain why he is so hyper.  
"Hey, Sophia. Quick question:", Sophia must have already been preparing another lecture on why he should wait for about 8 months before they talk about the "reproductive cycle", judging from her facial expression, and her smell, "Why do I have soo much energy? You always seem tired, right, but I can barely stand still! That stress test hardly got me working, and you know that"  
Sophia had, infact, known that the stress test was really just a "How fast can Zano run thirty kilometers?" test. It took him, on the highest speed the poor treadmill (designed originally for slow, bipedal humans) nearly forty-five minutes to get that entire distance. She knew he was really hyper because of, and as the bloodwork proved, an over-active adrenal gland, and a hyperbolic metabolism. The prior of his conditions allowed for amazing bursts of speed, strength, and reaction time, for near-continuous amounts of time. The latter of the two meant that his body would digest and dispose of most food within nearly a quarter of the time it took a human to digest. While very benificial to the Zerg during a Zergling's average hour-long lifespan, the effects of such strain on the body's systems for prolonged periods of time would be devastateing. First, organs would wear out faster, blood vessels would harden in a few years time, joints and bones (or in Zano's case, sub-carapace bones and pro-carapace bones) would become weak and brittle within nearly an eighth of the time that it happens to humans. And last, and most devastating of all, he would develop memory loss much faster, given his bodie's rapid pace. Inside Zano's body, it is like a person who has nearly over-dosed on Cocaine, heart pumping quickly, brain jumping sparks and making errors, kidneys filtering blood very poorly, stomach barely digesting everything fully, cells replicateing so quickly that mutations in cells can occur in minutes, rather than years. In a private study during the Terran Dominion's rule, a single Zergling kept on a well balanced diet, only lived six and seven/eighths years! She knew that there were ways to keep Zano from experienceing the same rapid-ageing effects of his natural conditioning, but that would slow him down immensely. She had told her now-demised brother this when he.  
Zano was again, waiting for her to respond. He was amazingly impatient sometimes, but she supposed that it was due to his young age, and his physical conditioning.  
"Well?" He cocked his head at her, his tallons tapping the floor in obvious impatience.  
"Ah, Zano, basically your body is, built the way it is because you're expected to have a short life-span. Through generations of evolutions, you have been breed so you are a fully-functioning killing-machine right from the egg"  
"Ya know... that is exactly what Rath told me. Guess I need to get that slowed down or something"  
Zano truely felt sorry for Sophia, because she seemed to take his inevitable demise right on the spot. The color faded from her face, her shoulders slumped downward, and she "wilted like a flower" as Rath would have said. He couldn't stand seeing her like this, its not like she should be feeling sad or anything, because it is just what will happen. Perhaps, if he attempted to comfort her a bit, she would feel better.  
"Hey, I'll still be around for another seven years. No need to get all upset." Zano pitched. She didn't take him up on the light-hearted approach.  
"Listen, Zano... I lost my brother on the same hill you said you assaulted and I... I can't help but think of him because, well, you're so much like him it makes me sick"  
"How am I like your brother? You said humans and Zerglings were different..." Zano had obviously not been informed of metaphors and similes by Rath, because it had become apparent that he had no idea as to what Sophia meant.

She slowly walked out of the room, leaving Zano there all by himself. He was confused as to why she felt so "sick", and why she didn't tell him how her brother and he were so similar.

Quinn finally managed to escape the Jamming Bubble after a few hours of dodging patrols and sneaking around in the bulky Marine armor. He'd made radio contact with command, and now Huxley was taking an air-strike into serious consideration. Judging by the poorly-defended and poorly-orginized contacts Quinn had described, the enemy had wiped 3rd Company out because said company was the hardest hit of the four that had made land-fall. The planet-wide purge of the Zerg was still well underway, but for some reason Huxley could not get into contact with the UED's main fleet, meaning that they had probably been destroyed when persuing a Swarm agent named Kerrigan. Quinn had known full well that the UED shouldn't have split into the two forces, but Huxley had agreed for the sake of getting the men home faster.

Meanwhile, in the quiet break in trees where the Heta squad met it's fate, a group of SCV's began to cut down a mile diameter circle around the newly established base of operations for the "Brothers of Korpulu", createing a "No-man's land" by using a thick perimeter around the base, which was reinforced by several bunkers and Siege Tanks. But who would assault an anti-ground defencive emplacement from the ground?

Chapter 4: That sinking feeling

Gunfire sounded a bloody requiem as the red armored soldiers faced off against the white armored soldiers. A single expanse of tree-less field served as a mass-graveyard for the advancing forces. It seemed that hundreds of blue armored soldiers had already gone down, the white defenders holding their own as best to their ability. Several bunkers filled to the brim with marines, goliaths, siege tanks, and of course a wraith or two, covered an entrance that was the major entrance to the UED 5th Company. The opposing force, the self named "Brothers of Korpulu", had made several fruitless attacks on the UED's position, given they did not seem to throw vehicles into play. The slaughter continued in periodic bursts, obviously there was a Barracks outfited with a cloning facility somewhere, and it needed to be destroyed.

/*Elsewhere/  
Zano stretched and yawned as he shook of tendrils of sleep. He started to hate waking up, especially because his "bed" was so comfortable! Sophia had been busy the last four days, hardly stopping by their room. Originally, he thought she was just upset, but it turned out that contact with a hostile force had been made when "Heta" squad went missing, and was located by Quinn and his amazing stealth ability (how he moved in that suit was beyond Zano). The "testing" had been cut short, due to Sophia's outburst and the hostile forces. Quinn had told Zano to keep quiet, and stay in Sophia's room as much as possible, for the marines in 5th Company were not quite ready for him to be frequenting the barracks. Zano had half-listened, of course, and he was getting a bad case of "Cabin Fever" the first few hours inside of Sophia's room. He was fed up being stuck in a "tin can" (as Rath had called it) and needed to explore a bit. He looked around the room (more correctly, a suite), searching for a suitable back door, and found a nice one in the top right corner of Sophia's bathroom. His escape was blocked only by a thin metal grate, that Zano managed to remove rather easily without breaking it. He nearly fell, however, pulling the thing off, because he was balancing on a medicine cabnet in a crouched position. If he wasn't worried about breaking things, he would have dug his scythe arms into the ceiling, but obviously that would blow his cover. Placing the vent in the sink of the bathroom, Zano crawled up into the open air-duct, making a very tight squeeze. He crawled for nearly 4 meters, before meeting another duct that lead outside. His only problem with reaching this duct was that it was about a meter of verticle space to the damn thing. He wished there was another way, but previous knowledge told him this was the last option short of walking right out the front door. He dug his scythes into the sides of the vent, and followed suit with his other limbs. Using a very carefully coreographed movement, he worked his way up to the top of the vent. Pausing as soon as his head hit the top of said vent. With a metal screech, it dented inward and popped out.  
Zano froze for a second... 'had he just been caught?' he wondered. Thankfully to his surprise, the answer was no. He pulled himself out of the vent, and realized that he was not pearched ontop of the building that contained the suite, but instead he was inside of a cold, metal machine shop, the one that was a four second scurry from the front door of the suite.  
While he WAS ontop of something, he was not outside, like he had hoped. He scanned around, looking to see if the coast was clear. He felt a hearty grumble in his stomach, and decided that the kitchen that was also attatched to the machine shop would make a nice destination. He scurryed down to the floor level, rolled under a propped-up vulture, and looked around again. Something caught hold of his tail, and of course being taken by surprise, Zano yelped.  
"EEK"  
He was drug out into the open air of the machine shop. Another hand grabbed his neck and held him up. Zano had shut his eyes out of fear, but after a long silence he opened them and saw Corpus, who was holding him one handed.  
"Fancy seeing you around here, Zano. I assume you get cabin fever rather quickly." Corpus laughed a hearty laugh "I assume you're hungry, given no one left you food"  
Corpus set Zano back down, and began to stride in the direction of the kitchen. Zano followed after, and Rath came to mind again "Dogs are cute, but they beg for your food, outside of that, there is not much that they stay with you for". He sighed, and followed Corpus into the kitchen.  
"Ok, so I know you're capable of free-choice..." Corpus opened a cabnet, which contained jars and boxes. Of course, that was not exactly what Zano noticed. The smell of the "PB&J" floated off toward Zano's nostrils first. Corpus would have asked why Zano was wagging his tail, but he hadn't an idea what to say. He loved dogs, but this was probably the first time any dog-like entity had been able to talk to him. It was difficult, really, because Zano knew things thanks to Rath's "mind-blast", but the lil' thing was so damn NAIVE. It was like treating someone like a little kid, but they had the mind of a genius! He really felt bad about treating Zano so, but he supposed Zano would have at least said something beforehand.  
Of course, much to Corpus' surprise, Zano jumped up to said open cabnet, and pulled out the bread, Peanut butter, and some Strawberry Jam. Zano then shot Corpus an inquery:  
"Hey, where are the butterknifes"  
Corpus, was stunned for a second. If he knew anyone who made PB&J relgiously, that would have been Soap, but that would mean that Zano had extremely sensitive scent! Perhaps the could train him to look for mechanical leaks, or even land mines (given the things used a bit of oil for the tripping mechanism.  
"Hello! Earth to Corpus, come in Corpus! Where is a butter knife!?" Zano was near-screaming at him at this point. Corpus pointed out a small drawer and Zano hastily opened it, extracted a decent sized butter-knife, and began to create not one, not two, but eight sandwiches, which he absolutely DEVOURED in a matter of moments. Lil' thing musta been starveing or something!  
"Ok.. now then, do we have milk around here?" Zano was now walking off to the refrigerator, apparently Rath included that detail, at least.  
"Yeah, how about I fetch you a cup"  
Zano glared at him before opening the fridge.  
"Don't you DARE grab a bowl!" he threatened, then Zano opened the refrigerator and extracted the carton of milk.

/*Nearly an hour later/  
'Humans have an interesting way of storing food', Zano thought as he climbed back down the vent leading to the suite. 'Specifically how they keep all of their liquids cool when they are going to drink them in a cup'. He was perplexed, however, that sometimes cold drinks were not wanted, and they were instead boiled or heated in some way. He didn't understand this concept quite, but Rath had described a "season" called "Winter", when all the trees would lose their leaves, and the air would get cold, days shorten, and occasionally snow (which was really just frozen water droplets) would fall. Rath described the snow most vividly, mainly with a short memory about when he was much MUCH younger (he said it was when he was 8, but Zano thought otherwise), but Rath and another young human would roll the snow up into balls and throw them at each other. It looked like great fun, but Rath warned that Zano would get really cold because he was "cold blooded" (didn't make sense to Zano, Rath forgot to explain that). He finally reached the end of the vent that let into the bathroom. Corpus was nice enough to send word to the base cooks that he was hungry, so a rather LARGE shipment of PB&J's was sent to the suite, and was waiting for Zano at the entrance of the bedroom. He would have just dived into the box and consume every single one of the savory sandwiches, but Zano decided that one or two at a time would probably do him good. Corpus had taught him about a device called a "TV", which displayed moving images and sounds at the same time! While the UED didn't air very many things on said TV's, Zano did get a nice look at what was happening on the front lines via a survalence camera "live feed". He dug out two sandwiches, sprawled out on his belly, and proped his head up on one of his fore-legs.

/*Meanwhile, in the actual area said survalence camera was watching/  
"Shit, another wave is approaching! Marines! Reload, refresh, and get ready to re-kick these guy's asses!" Quinn was screaming over the Comm. He made for quite the moral booster, Huxley had told him.  
Quinn jammed the stim-pack button built into his glove, dropped his half-empty magazine from his rifle, slammed a new one in, pulled the loading bolt back, and aimed down range. More of the red-clad contacts began to rush out of the forest, meeting the UED defender's sites dead on. More bright yellow tracers streamed out of the bunkers, slamming into the red-line that was working its way forward. Multiple contacts fell, their respective medics attempting to keep things under control. The medics were given no mercy, however, and met a cruel fate as the Siege tanks reloaded and fired a volley of shells into the open field just short of the UED's defensive line. Explosive hail saturated the break of trees with dismembered limbs, shredded muscle and organs, and of course, blood. The craters of the volley proveded a bit more cover for the approaching red line, but it only was enough to preserve one or two men to a crater. The red-clad soldiers only had a few moments to return fire to the bunkers, because another volley of siege tank rounds would pummel the offenders a mere five seconds later. It was becomming a rather demorilizing scene, wounded soldiers missing limbs would crawl around, medics would die atop the people they attempted to save, a select few marines would survive, only to be killed by the few shots that would be fired into the mess of bodies and bits.  
It was quiet again. Quinn repeated the reloading process without delay, and again ordered his subordinates to keep on their toes.

/*Nearly an hour later/  
"Quinn, forward radar sites are detecting infantry and support mechs moving into our positon. ETA in five." Scott was barking into Quinn's ear.  
It was about time the enemy came back, the last hour had been terrible on moral. His troops could stand fighting, but it was when all was quiet they got uneasy. He had five minutes to inform everyone of the moving force, have reinforcements prepared, and get on the line to fire at the approaching forces. Infantry was one thing, but support vehicles of any type could mean trouble. All it would take is one rocket to blast a bunker out of commision, meaning the emplaced weapons would be trashed.  
A great roar could be heard rapidly approaching from the trees. It was one thing for them to march into a hail of bullets and fire, it was another thing to be screaming while doing that. The red-clad marines came, followed by medics and, amazingly, Goliath support walkers and Firebats. The rounds cracked to life, siege shells blasted into the wave of red, but it wasn't nearly enough. There was an overwhelming number of men rushing their position right now. Quinn had seen Zerg Rushes smaller than this, this torrent of armed men and walkers. The Goliaths fired their rockets, several striking bunkers, but the majority desimating the Siege tanks that had been supporting the defenders. With the tanks out of commision, the marines and firebats closed on the bunker, flamethrowers roasting the occupants. Quinn was about to call in a Wraith strafeing run, when a rocket struck his bunker. A ball of flame, debris, and bits of the person nearest to the blast showered him, and Quinn was near-crushed by the wall of shattered concreate. He shook his head, trying to clear the fog it was in. He was numb, and visibly shakeing, meaning that he had a concussion, and was in shock, a lethal combination. He heard heavy foot falls nearby, and looked over, only to see red-clad marines. One raised his visor upon noticing Quinn's motion. He crouched down, a pistol in hand, mere inches from Quinn's face.  
"Heh, you UED pigs think you can just march all over this sector. Oooh, boy. Too bad you won't be around to witness the Brother's assention to power"  
The marine pointed his side-arm at Quinn, until a massive shadow drenched the bunker. Quinn laughed and stared back at the marine.  
"Looks like you won't be around for that either, jack ass"  
Shortly after, the Battle Cruiser "Unprecidented Justice" (one of the three Battle Cruisers allocated to Huxley) unleashed it's barrage, a recently released weapon to the UED (not seen out in the Korpulu Sector's Battle Cruisers), a hail of air to ground rockets, which caused massive damage to just about everything on the ground.

/*The medical ward/  
"God damnit, we need some more blood transfusions over here! Nurse, get those, and some bandages! We have wounded limping in from the first Defensive line!" Sophia barked.  
'Quinn was in that line', her mind chimed in, as she set up yet another IV on a wounded marine. This one had second degree burns on his upper torso, neck, and right arm. Damn guy also had shrapnel peppered into his chest cavity as well, meaning that unless they opened up and operated immediately, he was going to die a slow and painful death. She fixed a bit of morphine up, gave him a nice sedative in addition to that, and watched him fall asleep, possibly to never wake up again. The destruction that was wraught by the new barrage weaponry was amazing. Huxley had greenlighted the strike, without thinking. She wanted to scream at her father, but odds were pretty good that Quinn was dead before the barrage even began. Another marine was drug in via a medic, put on a bed, so Sophia got to work. This one was still consious, and obviously in a lot of pain. His abdominal cavity was shreaded, fecal matter all over god and everything. The marine was uttering a silent prayer, an obvious last hope, a small metal cross clutched tightly by his hands. It was a sobering sight for most of the medics, who had never experienced a doomed soul first hand. There was a protocol initiated around 2300, where the medically unsaveable were to be given a choice to either be euthanized, or to die slowly. Most took the prior, but occasionally you got a person who would preservere until the last breath. She pressed this question to the young, twenty some-odd man before her. He was not focused on her one bit-  
"For the lord art my shepherd, my savior. Let my sacrifices in this life be justification that I might join him in holy union-" the marine trembled, his eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he was still. Sophia would have stopped, but she had others to save. She tagged the expired marine, and got him sent to the morgue for cryo-preservation, so that he could be shipped home to his family and buried on Earth. She hoped to God that Quinn was not going to turn up like that, but there was a real chance that we wouldn't even have a body to bury.

/*Sophia's Suite/  
Zano knew right from the moment that the first bunker went up in flames that something horrible was about to happen. He had talked to Corpus a long while ago, but what he was told was that Quinn was in that first line! He couldn't stand looseing one of his new friends, so he bolted toward the front door, smashed on through, dodged the various marines who attempted to stop him, and ran full on toward the front line. The Battle Cruiser cast a massive shadow upon the base, as it assended into low orbit, createing an erie aura about the place. Zano couldn't stop to observe this, however, he needed to save Quinn! He was still bolting, when he smelt a horrible smell, coagulated blood as Rath had taught him, in similar quantities as when his brothers and sisters had died. He followed the scent, sniffing it closely for Quinn's scent. He got closer, and smelt all manner of horrible smells. Fecal matter, urine, blood, even stomach acid radiated out of the Medical Barracks. He walked into the Medical Barracks a bit, and heard sobbing. He looked, and saw a young marine who had lost his left leg, and taken shrapnel and other wounds all over the rest of him. The marine had warm tears streaming from his face. But that was not what troubled Zano, instead, it was what the marine was crying-  
"MAMA! AAAAAH! IT HURTS! IT HURTS! MAMA PLEAAAAAASSSSEEEE"  
Zano felt his legs go numb, eyes water, vision blacken, and he collapsed unconsious to the floor.

/*The smoldering ruins of the first defensive line/  
It was now night time. The fires from the recent destruction had long since burnt out, the cries of the wounded now silent. It was too early for decomposition of the dead, but it was not too early for the blood to coagulate.  
A rock shifted, and poped out of position, followed by a bloodied marine.

It was pain at first, unrelenting pain that burned throughout his ribs, legs, arms, head, everywhere! He thought of crying out, but he decided that it would do him no good. His vision was not adapted to the low-light situation ahead of him at first, but after a good five minutes, he could see that he was in a sea of ashes and blood. He stood, and scanned around for anyone who might try to harm him. No such shadows or sillouettes revealed themselves. He turned, and saw the massive heap of metal that was a siege tank at one point. That meant that up the hill was home.  
He drug his near-useless body up, until he was blinded by a great light. He heard voices over a loud-speaker, but could not determain their intentions. He raised his hands above his head, and collapsed to the floor, out of available energy.

/*Medical Barracks/  
Sophia had near-tripped on Zano's unconsious body, which was positioned infront of a now-stable marine. This guy made quite the scene, but it was ok. Zano apparently was a bit light of heart, and probably passed out at the sights and smells of the Medical Barracks. She moved him to where she had her sleeping position established. It was always a race to see who would get the best sleeping spots in the Medical Barracks, and Sophia always lost. She hated sleeping away from her work, when they needed her, so she set up just short of the reception desk. She carried Zano (which was a monumental task, even for an E.R. Veteran) and placed him on a makeshift bed of a blanket and a pillow.  
"Atleast you can manage to sleep." she mumbled under her breath. It was an adreniline rush to keep all of the patients alive, and that was why she loved this job, was also why she was good at it.  
She stroked the top of Zano's muzzle, the smooth carapace felt good against her hand. She usually ended up punching something because of the rediculous amount of energy she got, but petting Zano seemed to be a nice outlet.  
He stired.

"uuugh..." was just about as well as he could possibly state his condition. He felt nausiated and exhausted, but he was up. The smells of blood and other bodily fluids had near-vanished by now, and Zano was happy about that. His vision was blurry, but he could tell someone had moved him away from the wounded man he had seen earlyer.  
A soft hand on his snout caught his attention, and he creaked a bleary eye at, it turned out, Sophia.  
"S-sophia..? Wha-what happened?" was all he could manage.  
Sophia smiled at him, and scratched the back of his neck.  
"You ran into here when the wounded from the first defensive line started pouring in. I know, you were tired of being locked in that room, but I wanted to protect you from all the horrors of war. You are just a little kid, ya know.", she rubbed his snout again, "After all, you were born only a week ago"  
A week. Seven days. One of the 86 that this planet would go through while on it's orbit. It was such an insignificant amount of time on the big scale of things, but so much could happen to a being in a week. A war could start, a friend die, a lover be found, anything could happen during a week! If there was anything Zano knew, it was that this week was only the first of many more that his life-span would probably cover.  
Sudden commotion outside of the Medical Barracks broke Zano's thoughts. Another Marine was being wheeled in, and Sophia was already up. She patted Zano again on his snout.  
"Hang on a bit Zano, I gotta get this guy stablized." She droned, almost like she had said that line over a hundred times.  
A scent caught Zano's interest, it wasn't the smell of blood or anything, but rather the scent of a thought-to-be-dead friend. It was Quinn.  
Zano got up, and followed after Sophia.

She could hardly believe her eyes. Quinn had somehow managed to survive the barrage! It was obvious that the luck was all he had right now, given the shear number of lacerations, burns, and other various wounds (including a practically powdered left femur). He had a steady heartbeat, and strong respirations. Quinn was unconsious, but very much alive. He looked worlds better than some of the men who had come in earlyer. She wrapped the wounds, did minor surgery on his femur, and got him an IV all within the next hour. Amazingly, Zano did not pass out during all this, he had instead been asking questions, attempting to keep his mind occupied on something other than how banged up Quinn was, obviously.

/*Hours later/  
It was a bad day, for all of them in some way. Sophia layed down in her sleeping spot, and Zano curled up near by. A squad was sent to search for more survivors, UED or rebel. They found none.

Chapter 5: God, Gold, and Glory!

/*Roughly two weeks since the initial push from the 'Brothers of Korpulu'.*/

"Bloody Hell!" Rath yelled.  
Despite his yelling, the horror that was fire and forget artillery was ripping the division to peices. He'd already lost a firebat and two marines to the artillery strike, and now the shells were smacking the armor that was supporting his team. Only two siege tanks had been allocated to the ghost, and both were out of commision! One was kaput because of a mine field, and the other had just been trashed by that artillery shell! Of the six marines and three firebats he was given, now only four marines and two-  
BOOMF! Another artillery shell went off nearby, cutting the two firebats from Rath's roster.  
'Great' He thought 'Now I have a fire team, as to the seven men I was given, I have FOUR.' He was pretty much up shit creak without a paddle. He could hold his own, but it was his job to get the fou-  
BOOMF! Three marines to safety. 'Or to the objective.' his mind reminded him.  
It was becomming more and more of a suicidal mission as they pressed on. The marines had taken to running in the denser parts of the forest canopy, in hope the shells would strike the high above canopy and not obliverate them. Rath followed the three marines to the objective. He only had three me-  
POP!  
Scratch that, two men. 'Fucking sniper.' His mind chimmed in.  
POP! Another marine dropped. The last one having finally found cover, but that was not Rath's concern. The sniper's muzzle flash was poorly concealed, and Rath tossed a grenade at said sniper.  
"OH SHI-" BOOMF!  
'So much for that arsehole. I guess this last guy won't be too happy that all of his buddies are'  
BOOMF!  
'Mother fucker. It's like everytime I think about my roster amount, some one DIES'  
Well, now he was on his own. He wasn't allowed to scout ahead because he was the commanding officer, but now he could use his cloaking device and scouting skills to his best ability! It sucked that he now had no support, but then again this mission would have gone better had they just orbital dropped him into the center of the fucking complex!  
'The mission...' his mind chimed in.  
What a fucking brilliant mission! We will drop-ship some men and tanks in BROAD DAYLIGHT, then move up the ROAD that leads to an enemy controlled supply post. The only thing that had gone "according to plan" was that there was no Anti Air defenses to down the drop-ships! Huxley was becomming more and more desperate to end this conflict with the rebel forces, and now he was making poor desisions based on non-existant intellegance! Fortunatly, Rath isn't used to working under ideal circumstances, so he got to work immediately. He turned the cloak on, ran right on past the guards and artillery guns, and planted several charges on various structures that had been marked via long range trackers.  
FZZZZT!  
The cloak failed and sputtered off. Worse than that was where he was... in an armory filled with half-dressed marines.  
"Fuck." he mumbled, pulling his side-arm and simultaneously emptying it into the defenseless marines in the room.  
'Well, I get to run my arse off like an illegal immigrant... fun.' He mused, and then he bashed the door down and ran like no tommorow.

/*UED 5th Company Base of Ops/  
"Awww... come on Sophia! I won't hurt anyone!" Zano begged. He had increasingly been attempting to win Sophia over enough to go outside and meet some of the people at the base... or atleast get some sandwiches from Corpus.  
"For the last time Zano, my dad doesn't like the idea of you running around until you prove yourself mature enough to NOT mess with those around you"  
'Great', Zano thought, 'She heard about that too'  
A day ago, after Quinn was allowed to leave the Medical Barracks, Zano had finally gotten to go out for a bit. It was going good until someone's 'Rabbit' had gotten loose, and was running around. Zano still had no idea why, but he chased it with a firey passion that would put most hunting dogs to shame! Poor thing never stood a chance once it got tired though... Zano had DEVOURED the damn thing once he caught it. The officer who owned said rabbit was rather upset. Word spread to Huxley of course, and now Zano was again confined to the suite.  
'It tasted pretty good though...' he thought.  
"Don't you roll your eyes at me Mister!" Sophia yelled.  
"Huh? Could you repeat that, I wasn't paying attention..." he laughed, and gave Sophia a sheepish grin.  
Sophia sighed. Visually defeated, Zano gathered. She had probably wanted to yell at him more, but obviously Sophia doesn't have the heart for it. He liked that about her, because it showed she really cared... that or she didn't know what to do with him. He hoped for the first over the latter.  
"Zano listen... that C.O. really loved that bunny alot... like hes had the thing for nearly seven years now"  
"BWAHAHAHAHA! You said he loves the bunny!" Zano cackled, falling backwards and laughing after he had completed teh sentence. He recovered his stance, got back into a sitting position.  
"But really, Soap... its a fucking bunny"  
Then he got smacked across the face by Sophia.  
"Where in the hell did you learn that language"  
'what...? -the fuck!?' He thought 'Didn't you teach me that'  
"Well!?" she pressed.  
"Eh... it was, Rath! Yeah.. of course it was Rath!" he lied. Better his ass stayed unharmed than get Soap more pissed off than she already was.  
"You're bluffing Zano. I have worked with die-hard patients before, who lie about their condition so that they can get back to the fight"  
'Bugger.' he needed to find a way to not piss her off... 'just tell her the truth! She might not like it, and we might get our ass kicked, but I'm sure she'll understand!' he finally concluded to himself.  
"Well..." he looked at the floor nervously, and tapped his claws on the metal flooring "I kinda learned it from you when you were working yesterday"  
Sophia sighed.  
'Bingo.' he thought 'Well executed and flawless! She cannot possibly do anything to us now'  
"Alright." she said "But do not use that language until you're a bit older boy! It's not exactly helpful if my father hears you swearing like the marines when I try to get you outside again"  
'Beautiful! I love me so much! I hope I can get out of here soon!' His mind cheered.

/*Rath's current location/  
'Shit, Shit, Shit, and more Shit. How in god's name am I to un-fuck this situation'  
More rounds flew off into his direction, several making contact with the low wall he was covered behind.  
'Wait... I am well outside of the initial blast's radius. I can run once that one goes off, and maybe'  
Tink! "GRENADE"  
'Fucking hell. Why on Earth did they have to do that?' He thought, as he ran dead on towards a low wall directly behind him. He jumped over and covered himself, and a resonating explosion made his vision cut out for a second. He pushed himself up, and again ran over his options of escape.  
'If a little grenade's concussive blast is enough to get me from the other side of a wall, that means I won't be covered nearly as well as I had hoped' he reasoned.  
A loud crack caught Rath's attention. One of the snipers had gone rogue or something, because now the grenade throwing marine was rolling on the floor, grabbing his throat.  
'Well, if that sniper is going to keep those arsehats busy... I guess I can throw one or two without really getting into too much trouble.' He used some telekinesis to toss a marine into a stack of crates. Turns out there was something volitile in those crates, because the resulting explosion caused massive damage to the guys shooting at him.  
'Well, Huxley won't like it, but I suppose that it's not exactly unfare in this case'  
Rath fixed himself into a sprinting position, set the timer on the charges' detonator, and ran from the base into the forest, following the road from a concealed path off to the side. Some enemy reinforcements rolled into the base, and set up quickly. Rath prepared himself for the resulting explosion, fixing himself a nice front-row seat to the explosion. Those reinforcements had the unfortunate timing of showing up right as everything went to hell.

/*UED 5th Company Base of Ops/  
Sophia left shortly after she breifed Zano about his swearing. Zano hadn't thought of it as particularly bad, but he supposed that it was like biting someone's tail (which was a really rude gesture to other Zerglings). At any rate, shortly after she left, Corpus had come in, bearing a sullen look.  
"Perhaps it is time that I explain a few things about Sophia to you Zano. She's not entirely well about how you are acting"  
Zano creaked his head sideways and raised an eye ridge, "What about my behavior? I haven't done anything but eat that rabbit!" he protested.  
Corpus sighed. "Zano. This is going to be a bit more information that you are going to want at once, but I need to explain this to you so you know why she is treating you this way"  
Zano was completely confused now, so he settled himself on a pillow in the main room of the suite, and got ready to listen to what Corpus had to say about Sophia. Corpus sat down in a metal chair located in the main room.  
"Alright, Zano, I'm not sure if Rath included everything specific about Sophia so I will attempt to fill you in on as much as I know." Corpus was now stareing directly into Zano's eyes. His peircing gaze made Zano feel rather self-consious.  
"When Sophia first met Quinn, she was absolutely in love. They say that you occasionally encounter a person who fits your "Love Map", which is a set of emotional and physical features that will... erm", Corpus gazed carefully around the room, before re-establishing eye contact with Zano, "Turn them on, so to speak"  
He shifted nervously in his seat.  
"Well, she and Quinn were really in a relationship. I mean, they were inseperable after their first date"  
Zano looked quizzically at Corpus.  
"First date? Like, they were mateing or something"  
"Eh...", Corpus responded, "That is later. I am not sure about Zerglings, but when a male and a female human get together, they 'date', which is basically just a little bit of time together so they can get to know each other. Sometimes, people date and fall in love, other times they date, and just stay friends. Relationships for humans can be complicated.." Corpus trailed off, "But, at any rate, after a few weeks of dateing, they indeed did mate.. a few times actually if hear-say is to be believed"  
Zano was pretty much on the edge of his seat. 'Sophia, having a love life?', he thought, 'Well, I guess she did smell a bit weird when she was around Quinn, but I thought that was just a natural smell... hmm'  
"At any rate", Corpus continued, "She got pregnant, and the two were so happy"  
Corpus was silent for a bit, until tears began to stream from his eyes.  
"She.. well, roughly six months into pregnancy, had an ovarian cyst detected deep in her overies.", he paused a moment, "A week later, she had a miss-carage. It was a violent one, and it ripped the ovarian cyst, caused internal bleeding, it was... unbelieveable." Corpus got up from his chair, and crouched down infront of Zano.  
"Sophia's overies were completely destroyed. She cannot have kids, period.", he patted Zano on the snout, "It has been a year since that. Now, she and Quinn are still very deeply in love, it is just that they are so hurt, and there has been so much going on with these rebels, that they haven't really had any time to say anything to you, but you need to know these things. Sophia's father is especially torn now, because first his daughter is practically spayed by nature, and then your brothers and sisters killed his son a mere week and a half ago! Personally, I don't blame him for being uneasy about having you here, but he is sticking it out because he wants his last child to be happy"  
Zano's head was spinning in theoretical circles. How was he supposed to know that she was not able to have kids? What did he ever do to Sophia's father? He didn't know the answers to these questions, but Corpus was pretty bent out of shape. He was a tough soldier according to Rath, but off the battlefield he was really soft. Zano couldn't help but feel that this man was the closest thing to a friend that he had. Sure, Sophia and Quinn were his friends, but now with the new information that Corpus gave him... it seemed more like they were trying to be his parents. He felt so bad for his actions now...

/*Supreme Commander Huxley's desk/  
"Alright, what have you got for me Scotty?" Huxley asked between puffs of cigar.  
"Well, sir, it appears that our data on the Zergling is a bit... short. We know nothing of his vascular system, and hardly anything about his central nervous system! If you really want to know about the thing, I would tell your daughter to get over her depression and get to work"  
Huxley gave Scott a wicked look.  
"You do NOT insult my daughter Mr. Scott.", he motioned for one of his guards, "I don't wish to be personal about this, but you have pushed me quite a bit these past few weeks." he continued, making a breif motion to the guard, "Deal with Mr. Scott, please"  
Mr. Scott was escorted on gun-point out of the base. He was never seen again.

/*Recreational Barracks "Bring me another scotch please. I need to clear my head.", Rath mumbled to the bartend, "I can hardly take this bullshit any longer"  
"What is on the Ghosts mind today?" The bartend responded.  
"Ah, just how irrational Huxley has been getting in his actions. That last mission that I was on, my god, lost my entire team, My ENTIRE GOD DAMN TEAM.", he slammed the counter on the last word, "I have never lost my ENTIRE team! The intellegance we had was SHIT. Huxley is making horrible tactical desisions"  
"hmm", the bartend hummed, "It appears that we are in a bad situation. I've allways heard good things of Huxley, but the pressure he must be under is obviously eating him up"  
"Heh, no shit.", another voice commented from behind Rath, "How about you hit me up with a bit of vodka-cola." The voice's owner sat down next to Rath.  
"Woah, Quinn. I have not seen you in here for... well you know when." Rath sullenly commented.  
"Yeah... finally got good enough on my feet to stop by for a drink. It was pretty bad being stuck perfectly still for a week." Quinn mumbled.

The two soldiers were pretty much quiet the rest of the evening. Sometimes, just spending time around someone you know can heal wounds not healed by a medic. James shook his head, "When the shit hits the fan, those boys sure can keep their cool." He muttered, while wipeing up a puddle of vomit from a more boisterous drunk. What was the worst part, about the whole deal, was that he was supposed to tell Quinn to kill that Zergling. Huxley was getting more and more crazy each day, and today he wanted the lil' thing dead. While Jame's wasn't one to particularly trust the enemy, he wasn't one to be unjust, especially because of how Quinn and Sophia would act to that particular detail. James saw a shadow pour out onto the floor.  
"We're closed mate, come back around five tommorow." he said, standing up and turning to face the intruder. It was Huxley.  
"Did you tell him or not?" Huxley pressed.  
"Sir, I can't do that to Quinn, you know how they both feel about the Zer"  
A blast of pain shot through James' chest, blowing the wind out of him, along with bits of bone and shreds of heart and lung tissue.

/*The next morning/  
The morning had hit, and Quinn stirred in his sleep, finally wakeing up to the soft pressure of a body at his side. Her hands were wrapped around his upper torso. It was a good thing they let Zano out for the evening, otherwise he would have had a front-row seat to Quinn and Sophia's relationship!  
She woke up, her soft hands moving away from Quinn,  
"Good morning beautiful" Quinn smiled as he said that. She was so beautiful and damned smart, it made the most of the Companie's boys jealous.

They had showered, dressed, and readyed themselves for another day of fighting and medicinal work. Just before the two set out to leave for the day, a report came in over the closed circut base-wide news radio. It was about James....

"I don't understand the evils of men..." Quinn sighed, "Makes no god-damned sense. James was a bar-tend for thirty fucking years, and one day, some prick decides to shoot him"  
The soft hands had touched his face, being that it was the only thing not covered in thick armor at this point.  
"I will talk to my father, see about getting him some help for his stress. I am sure he's worried shitless that a mutanie is in the works"  
Her soft hands left his face, and she strood off into the sunlight. Quinn followed after her, and once he was outside, a great force hit him in the lower back and sent him doubleing forward.  
"Good morning!" Zano cheered, a blurry image to Quinn because of the tears from the impact with the ground.  
"Agh... Zano don't you remember that I just got released?" Quinn complained.  
"Well, yeah, but you're a soldier, you should be prepared all the time!" He laughed.

Zano and Quinn spent the next hour or so talking about how their respective nights were. Turns out Zano was with Corpus that evening, the two made good friends. Zano was also good at Twenty One, because he had amazing luck. 'That seemed pretty true', Quinn thought, 'Hell, the guy will probably turn out great if Sophia and I raise him'  
Huxley was generally dissaproving of Zano, however, and if they were going to keep him, then Zano was going to have to shape up.  
Suddenly, Zano stopped and raised his scythe arms, his tail, which had been wagging moderatly, was perfectly still. It looked to Quinn that he had spotted another rabbit or something, but as Quinn went to grab him, Zano took off after a marine who was aiming the rifle at him. Quinn didn't have to think twice about what was going to happen, he pulled his side-arm to warn that asshole, but it was too late. A stream of gunfire errupted from the marine's gun, slamming into Zano's carapace. Most of the rounds hit the natural grooves that prove great for causing ricochettes, but a select few punctured Zano's chest and neck area. Zano screamed out in anger and pain, rolled off to the side, jumped ontop of a crate, and pulled an amazingly lethal pounce on the marine, who was still trying to aim at Zano, because of the bulky armor.  
"ZANO! DON-" he was cut off by the shreiking of a young marine, who was getting a taste of Zano's scythes and claws. It was bad, until Zano ripped the marine's throat out, leaving a very dead marine, and a very shocked crowd. Zano limped away from the marine, blood dripping from his claws and tears streaming from his eyes.  
Quinn ran over to Zano, and checked the Zergling over for wounds. There were a few, mainly in Zano's bulky back carapace, but one had borrowed itself in Zano's neck, and yet another managed to get embedded in Zano's left hind thigh.  
Quinn patted Zano on the head, trying to keep him calm, to no avail.  
"Quinn, I.. I didn't mean... t-to..." Zano whimpered and pressed his snout into Quinn's chest. Quinn kept patting Zano's head.  
"It's alright bud, that asshole would have probably been executed for friendly fire..."

/*Huxley's Command Center/  
"And you mean to tell me that the marine shot Zano before that beast even tried to do anything?" Huxley screamed at Quinn.  
"Listen, sir, there is no reason to not be worried about the current situation. First we have threats of Mutanie, then this asshole trys to blast Zano"  
"Is that everything, Quinn? How about how the UED's primary fleet has been DESTROYED? I am not sure if you caught that detail while you were recovering, but we are ALONE out here!" Huxley spat, and then the "good" Commander poured a scotch. He downed the thing in one drink.  
"Get the hell out of here before I find something else to yell about." He mumbled.

/*The Medical Barracks/  
Sophia found it hard to put Zano under anesthsia, but it had to be done if they were going to patch him up. He had a few rounds lodged into the protective carapace, but despite their non-lethal nature, the fact that Zano still had nerve endings and blood flow going to the carapace, it was pretty uncomfortable to Zano to walk around with bleading holes all over. One shot had gotten pretty deep in his Left hind thigh, and that had caused Zano the most pain, given the legs were not so protected in comparison to the rest of his body. Sophia yanked the rounds, bandaged everything, used a bit of emergency surgery on the tramatized muscles in Zano's leg, and called it good. All that was left was for Zano to wake up.  
She sat there a good hour or so, drifting in and out of thought.  
The marine that attacked Zano was a five-year vet, and his assault was well founded given he lost the majority of his friends to the Swarm. Thing the marine had on him, that dumbfounded everyone, was a hefty sum of credits on his account, recently added for unknown reasons. If Sophia's mind was putting the peices together properly, some one was out to kill Zano, and if she knew anyone who disagreed with her on Zano, it was her father.


End file.
